EPFO starts scheme for employers

To generate employment, the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has started a scheme for employers, where they will not have to pay their Provident Fund (PF) contributions for new employees.

PUNE: To generate employment, the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has started a scheme for employers, where they will not have to pay their Provident Fund (PF) contributions for new employees.

“The Pradhan Mantri Rojgar Protsahan Yojana (PMRPY) scheme has been designed to provide incentive to employers for generation of employment, where the Central government will be paying the 8.33 per cent Employees’ Provident Scheme (EPS) contribution of the employer for new employment,” said Arun Kumar, Regional Commissioner of Pune EPFO.

Kumar explained that under the scheme, eligible employers must have added new employees to the reference base of workers, in order to avail benefits under the scheme, from August 2016. “The reference base of workers will be determined by the number of employees against whom the employer has deposited the 12 per cent (3.6 per cent EPF + 8.33 per cent EPS) with EPFO, as on March 31, 2016,” he said.

For example, he said, “An establishment had filed an Electronic Challan cum Return (ECR) for the employers’ contribution for 45 employees in March 2016. In April 2016, the establishment has added 15 new employees, bringing the total employees to 60. The employer will be eligible to apply for PMRPY scheme benefits for those 15 new employees.”

The employer will not be eligible to avail PMRPY benefits if there is no new employment for any subsequent month. The new employee is one that had not worked in any EPFO registered establishment or had a Universal Account Number (UAN), in the past, that is, prior to April 1, 2016.

DETAILS OF THE SCHEME
The PMRPY scheme is for employees earning wages less than Rs 15,000 per month. A new employee is one who has not been working in an EPFO registered establishment on a regular basis, prior to April 1, 2016, and will be determined by the allocation of a new Aadhaar seeded UAN on or after April 1, 2016. In case, the new employee does not have a new UAN, the employer will facilitate this through the EPFO portal.